


lord send me a mechanic if i'm not beyond repair

by emi_rose



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Canon typical character death, Gen, i didn't kill lucretia this time, i only killed her a little, she got better, wait no i definitely did but it's fine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-07-08 21:09:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19876129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emi_rose/pseuds/emi_rose
Summary: three snapshots of taako and lucretia's relationship through the years.





	lord send me a mechanic if i'm not beyond repair

By the seventh world they land on, the IPRE has found a routine that feels almost mundane, if interplanar travel and saving the world once a year could become routine. They scout the new prime material plane, they wait for the light to fall, and they pray like crazy they can find it before the whole sitch gets vored, again. Taako is kind of bored with the whole concept, if he's being honest.

And to make matters worse, his stupid sister went and got herself killed by this planet's hostile aliens, again, and he's just done with the whole thing. She didn't even get the Light, and now he has to sit here and twiddle his thumbs for like, five more months without her. It's sub-fucking-optimal.

He was making pancakes, but his hands kept getting lost without Lup’s to fill in the gaps, and it sucked bad enough that he needed to sit on the floor for a second. Lucretia walking in makes him jump out of his fucking skin, and she’s damn lucky he left his focus next to the mixing bowl or her ass would have been grass.

“Taako? Are you okay?” The concern in her voice is disgusting.

“‘M fine, pancake batter is better when it sits for a few minutes.” He wishes she’d go away so he could go back to thinking by himself. 

“Taako, it’s been four hours,” she says, and it would be funny if he hadn’t been losing time all week. 

“Fuck,” he says, and doesn’t make a move to get up. The pancakes are probably ruined, and he doesn’t particularly want to start over.

“C’mon,” Lucretia says, and drags him gently by the elbows to the couch. He thinks about protesting. He doesn’t. 

She wraps him in a blanket like some kind of  _ invalid _ , and sets herself to finishing the pancakes in the kitchen. She hums tunelessly. Taako wonders if Lucretia even knows how to make pancakes.

As it turns out, she doesn’t. They’re too crispy on the outside and still raw on the inside, and the parts that managed to be cooked right taste more like sourdough than like pancakes. Taako eats them all anyway. He hasn’t had real food in days. 

Lucretia cleans up the kitchen from her ill-fated pancake endeavor, crashing around the cabinets and steaming milk for some unknown reason. Taako is suspicious. 

She brings him a steaming mug of matcha, with what is undeniably a wang poured in the cream.

“I, uh, I tried to make a heart like you showed me that one time, but it didn’t go so great, and --” Taako grabs the mug and she shuts up.

The matcha is delicious, with just a hint of vanilla and the perfect ratio of tea to milk, dick shape or no. “S’good,” he mumbles into his mug, and he means it. Lucretia smiles, and it’s goddamn radiant, and sits down beside him. 

And they sit in an almost-contented silence, taking solace in each other's company. They make a habit of it, afternoon matcha on the couch. Lucretia makes the tea, her hearts looking more like hearts and less like dicks every day. It’s a new ritual, and as much as he didn’t want to like it, Taako looks forward to it. Not that he’d ever say that.

Two weeks later, Lucretia gets caught in an ambush on a scouting mission and dies. Taako tries to make matcha, that afternoon, but it tastes different. He doesn’t touch the ingredients until the next year.

\----

The night the Reclaimers return with the Oculus (Rift, Taako’s brain supplies automatically), Taako’s lying awake in his bunk, listening to the chorus of Merle and Magnus sawing wood and Robbie being high as balls. A message spell pings at the corner of his consciousness. From the Director, which is weird. He sticks his head out of the curtains to see if anyone else received a summons, but his roommates sleep on, unaware.

It’s not that he doesn’t  _ want _ to meet with the Director in the middle of the night, but it’s been a hard day of adventuring and he already took his pants off for the day. When another message, more insistent this time, arrives, he swears and rolls out of bed, heading for the dome that he’s pretty sure contains the Director’s office. Most of the lights have been turned off. A lone janitor wanders the halls, haphazardly cleaning, and waves at him. Taako doesn’t wave back.

The Director’s door is open, which is unusual, and she looks  _ tired _ , not just old-lady-tired, but really exhausted. 

“This better be good,” Taako says by way of announcing himself.

The Director looks up from her paperwork and smiles thinly at him. “Thank you, Taako, for taking time from your busy schedule to meet with me.”

“I need my beauty sleep, you know,” he grumbles.   


“And you can sleep in tomorrow, but we have an important matter to attend to.”

“Which is…?”

“Your umbrella. Could you give me some insight into how, exactly, you came across such a rare and...valuable object?”

“Sure thing, compadre. There was a dead guy, red hood and cape and shit, holding this umbrella, it looked cool and Merle wanted it, so I grabbed it.” 

“This...corpse. Did you get a look at its face? Any identifying characteristics?” 

“Listen, I don’t know why this is so important to you, okay? I found it on a dead guy, a skeleton, how many more times do I have to say that?!” 

The Director sighs, which is not very regal of her, Taako thinks. “I’m sorry. I’m simply trying to be vigilant for any sign of the Red Robes, and since you mentioned the...skeleton had red garments, I was compelled to investigate further. May I offer you some tea?”

“Sure, whatever.” Taako rolls his eyes. What has he got to lose, letting a slightly crazy old lady who runs a secret lunar cabal make him some tea? 

The mug the Director brings him smells like weird grass, but it tastes like home in a way he can't describe. There's a perfect cream heart poured into it, and he idly wonders where she learned that trick. The Director is full of mysteries, he supposes. 

\----

Taako wants his goddamn bracer off. He can’t even look at the thing, welded to his arm, Lucretia must have thought she was  _ so fucking clever _ , building an organization on loyalty and lies. He wants to puke. And sleep for a week. And hold his sister, which, despite her recent re-appearance in his brain and his life, is impossible due to the fact that she’s still a lich. 

While everyone at the Bureau is celebrating, Taako makes his way to Lucretia’s office, fuming, eyes wet with anger. He slams the door open, and she reaches for her staff. He whips out the wand he stole from Angus and points it at her throat. 

“Drop the staff, Lucy-Lu.” 

She does as she’s told, dropping the staff with a clatter on the floor rather than placing it neatly against her desk.

“Take this fuckin’ thing off,” he sneers. 

She shakes her head, and it’s so pathetic of her to act like she’s been done some great and terrible wrong when the whole damn thing is her fault, her and her stubborn ass trying to play God. 

But she does, she taps his bracer with one ringed finger and it falls apart at the invisible seams. Taako scoops it up and flings it at the portrait of her. Bullseye, right on the face. She winces. Good.

He doesn’t bother to shut the door behind him, just kicks it on his way to the cannon bay, to get off this godsforsaken moon once and for all. He doesn’t look back.

**Author's Note:**

> thank (?) you to tara and kith for ~~forcing~~ inspiring me to write this. please kudos/comment if you like! title is from the mountain goats as per usual.


End file.
